C/D: The Last Waltz

However, anybody who doesn't think the Band rocks should then watch Festival Express.

no shit they rip it up in fest exprs.

But Derek, I fucking love The Band, and they're like the epitome of a lot you don't like. But great sludgey garbage-country rock? Insert "punk" for "country" and you've got My War.

Deeeeeaaamn!!!!

I can't believe some of the sweeping statements on here. Yes, some of the performances are disappointing, particularly Dylan's, and the pious singalong of I Shall Be Released has none of the Big Pink version's mystery and longing, but as pointed out, it's beautifully shot and has more than its fair share of goodness and entertaining last gasp of the 60s rockistocracy antics (Van's trousers and high kicks, Neil Diamond's totally OTT and awesome turn, Ronnie Hawkin's showmanship, Neil Young's cocaine encrusted nasal hairs).
While Rock Of Ages is the truly great Band live recording, they're still on fine form here. Don't Do It is glorious and Levon is just immense on Dixie. The Joni and Emmylou tunes are lovely but I think the absolute highlight is Muddy Waters. He's just utterly, utterly awesome.
The pointless jam you get as a DVD extra is k-rub though.
Also, the interview segments were a massive influence on Spinal Tap, so even if you're not a fan of the music in the Last Waltz, you can't deny that it spawned one of the greatest comedy films evah!

I love this movie, overdubs and all.

this is on tv right now. every time i see it i like danko more and robbie less. danko, it's like you just wanna find some way to keep him safe. he's so great, but he seems so unequipped for life outside the band.

which i guess is an unfair characterization, because he really had a busy post-band career and all (and was obviously better equipped than richard manuel). but there's just something goofy and endearing and almost innocent about him in the movie, even though he always seems at least half-loaded. and he's so much fun to watch on stage.

There's a Scorsese season coming up in Vienna and they're showing this on the big screen. I am so there.

Am I the only one who thinks that Danko and Robertson were the spittin' images of De Niro and Keitel in Mean Streets?

Marty probably noticed that

I read somewhere that Neil Diamond said "just try and top that" to Dylan as he left the stage, to which Dylan said something like "how, by falling asleep?"

Yeah, I heard that story too, I can't really see Neil Diamond being that arrogant, after all he was about the only one there not coked off his nut

Which reminds me of another story, about a sequence having to be re-edited because Neil Young a huge line of coke-encrusted snot dangling from his nose... allegedly

it's actually just a small crystal hanging off his left nostril, iirc. i remember reading that they tried to fuzz it out, but you can see it if you're looking for it. (and if you're not looking for it, you probably wouldn't notice.) neil's also chewing gum sort of manically through the whole thing in a very cokey fashion. or looks like he's chewing gum, he could be just grinding his teeth. the accounts of the backstage coke room at that show are pretty crazy. wish there was footage of that.

also, this is a pretty nice backstage report.

Levon's bio has a great section on the utter ridiculousness of Neil Diamond's presence at the concert. Basically, Robbie was producing him at the time and got him on the bill.

all this talk of coke-encrusted faces...is that why Dylan wore whiteface on the Rolling Thunder tour?

"His munificence was engorged with snow" - Ginsberg on Dylan during the Rolling Thunder tour

I'll bet it was

i still like this version of "coyote" by joni mitchell better than the one on hejira

Yes on "Coyote"; I was disappointed when I later heard the Hejira version; not that it's not great, but I'd expected something more like the Last Waltz version.

It's corny but I dig Joni's silhouette (and vocals) on "Helpless".

yeah Joni shoulda done a whole album w/ the Band! Kind of shows how good they were that they could slip into that weird Joni Jazzy vibe so easily.

Didn't Robertson and Danko totally flub the changes to "Helpless," which apparently pissed Young off enough to call them out for it later on (thought I read about it in "Shakey")? I don't notice it in the film or on the soundtrack, so I'm assuming the screw-ups were corrected during the overdubs. You can see Robbie and Richard making faces and looking up to the ceiling during the song, as if they were jokingly trying to hide their mistakes.

they go into the chorus early -- i think you would've been able to hear it if you were there, but they mixed it out on the soundtrack ... maybe "Helpless" is just too easy for the Band ...

frankly neil isn't that great on this anyway

Van on the other hand....what a terrible terrible suit but such an amazing performance

i love this film but god seriously robbie is such a douche throughout this whole thing.

it drives me nuts how he always steps up to the mic during choruses and stuff so ppl watching the film will get the incorrect impression that he can actually sing a fuckin' note....so gross the way he's mincing around for scorcese during all the interviews too.....

even worse cuz he hogs all the camera time and he's by far the LEAST interesting member of the band IMO

otm x 5

Yes, Robbie R is a total dick in this

he can play pretty well and he did write some of the Band's best tunes, but yeah, he's pretty unbearable.

robbie r is an amazing guitarist and wrote some great tunes, but he is hilariously lame in this movie. i can't believe his whole "the road has been so tough, we've been on the road so long, etc." comments throughout ... If you look at their schedule post 1966, The Band was not exactly the hardest touring group in the world, by a long shot. also kind of insane that there's not a single Manuel-penned song on The Last Waltz ...

it's funny reading across the great divide, which i like overall even though i think hoskyns is too much of a fanboy about northern lights southern cross which i just don't like that much...but anyway he sort of points to one of the big things in the band's decline after the third album is manuel's decline as a songwriter which put everything on robbie....

i mean obv robbie is a GREAT songwriter but still manuel sometimes seemed to tap into something more magic and intuitive and special to me, whereas robbie is really a great craftsman, and later on it seems like he's straining to write sort of mythic americana stuff that feels more false (this begins on stage fright and gets worse as time goes on)

Yeah, Robertson is a supreme jerk in the film. I gather the "we're tired" lines were referring to their earlier days with Ronnie Hawkins etc. in the early 60s. According to Helm's autobio they played some tough places. But in 1978 it sounded like a lot of bullshit.

"we're tired" (of staying up all night doing coke in L.A. with clapton and scorcese)

xpost yeah, In A Station & Whispering Pines are pretty much my favorite Band songs -- I think you're right about Manuel being more intuitive/magical than Robertson. Robbie seems like he tries REALLY hard (and comes up with great stuff regularly), whereas w/ Manuel, you can imagine him just sitting down and having those songs come out. It really is a tragedy he didn't write more ...

i remember one of the goddamned wost things i ever heard was Robbie hawking a new solo record on one of the late night talk shows circa mid-90s.

i think scorcese deserves a lot of blame for how robbie comes across in the film but he deserves an infinite amount more credit for capturing the concert so beautifully so i don't know....

Robbie was tight with Scorcese. There was a lot of criticism at the time that Scorcese was setting Robbie R up as the "star" of the Band.

Huh. I was thinking he deserves credit for not hiding (via editing) what a dick RR is.
xpost

yeah but it is weird -- doesn't the movie start with Robbie doing "takes" of his interviews? It does sort of make him out to be the most artificial of the Band members ...

xp but i think scorcese fuckin' loved it!

I believe excessive amounts of cocaine can impair judgement

doesn't the movie start with Robbie doing "takes" of his interviews?
That’s actually one of my favorite parts of the film — a classic Scorsese trick. That and watching Danko adjust his hat during the sloppy jam on “Old Time Religion.”

my fav line in the interviews is when manuel says they were called the honkies but that name was "a little too street"

robbie's best moment is onstage when crapton's string breaks and he fucking owns "god" in the guitar duel

The bottom line is, the movie's closer to fiction than a documentary, but it's great nonetheless.

Manuel breaks my heart in the Last Waltz, because he's so wasted. In Festival Express he's more...elegant.

Robertson wrote my favorite Band songs ("Get Up Jake", "Across the Great Divide", "The Weight"). I don't know that Manuel wrote more "naturally"...is that because he seems more "authentic"? I'm pretty suspicious of that. I've never heard Robertson's solo albums, but I've meant to do for a long time.

I'm not sure "natural" is the right word, but I guess to me a great Robbie song seems like he had a great idea and really executed it well

whereas, a song like "Sleeping" off of Stage Fright, i can't even quite put my finger on why it's so great...what's so spooky about it, it doesn't even make like literal "sense" but the way he delivers lines is so affecting to me..."magic" is the best word to me...

like "sad old ships...a morning eclipse...i spent my whole life guessing" gives me actual goosebumps (just happened a minute ago) but i couldn't tell you what it "meant"

Yeah, I know what you mean. "Sleeping" is terrific; the drums on the bridge are fabulous. I love "In A Station" too. Manuel wrote the most elegant Band songs, I think ("Whispering Pines" too). And oh man do I love his drumming.

...and, the songs under accusation of being grossly sentimental, that makes Robertson an "urban sentimentalist" a year later.

Yeah, although xgau admits he likes the *sound* of the songs, and even gives the album a B+. Don't get so hung up on lyrics, 'gau (seems like he does that more and more). But since The Band did have some good lyrics some time before that record came out, guess he was struck by the difference.

He seems to consider Islands their worst, though I've never heard it. Is he right? Seems plausible at that point (I take it the title had to do with gaps).

Islands was an odds'n'sods set (that according to Robbie was promoted as a proper album) they delivered as a contractual obligation to Capital so Warners could release The Last Waltz.

If you like The Band, it's worth hearing as sort of a last hurrah of the original lineup as a studio band. They cover "Ain't That A Lot of Love" of which I know not a bad version. "The Saga of Pepote Rouge" is a sweet sing-along that appears on comps. "Twilight" is them doing Reggae.

I seem to also recall it was front-loaded with weaker material, a fatal move in the vinyl days.

my friends watch this every year on Thanksgiving

this year I went away thinking that Dr. John steals the show

Re: Islands, I think the last three tracks are keepers: "Georgia on My Mind," "Knockin' Lost John" and "Livin' in a Dream" (probably my favorite of the three). I enjoy them but don't care for the rest though "Pepote Rouge" and the Christmas song definitely have their fans.

The Last Waltz was my first real introduction to Dr. John. I only knew him as a piece of pop culture (Popeye's Chicken, Dr. Teeth's inspiration) and not as a musician - I was completely unfamiliar with "Such a Night" and absolutely loved it. The whole film was my introduction to a lot of things: "Helpless," "Caravan," Paul Butterfield, and above all the Band, and speaking as a kid who didn't know any of those songs or those particular people, the movie was amazing. So despite all the issues one would have with it (for good reason), I still think there's a lot that's great about it that can still make converts.

there's a lot you could sneer at, make fun of, poke holes in -- but as a once-a-year Thanksgiving ritual, it's brilliant. i always look forward to making fun of Neil Diamond, laughing hysterically at Van Morrison's kicks, grooving to Joni and Muddy Waters

the part where Clapton's guitar strap falls off and Robbie, without missing a beat, jumps right in and smokes him: classic

I don’t know if I buy that Robbie smoked him

Re: Neil Diamond, I'm not a fan, but I love his Bang recordings. Wish they played one of THOSE songs, it would've made the case for his inclusion rock solid. (Besides their history together, Robbie wanted Diamond as a representative of the Brill Building - every guest was supposed to represent one vital aspect of rock history up to that point, minus the proto-punk and avant-garde side that Robbie never seemed to care for.)

XP Fresh Smoked Clapton

I don't remember Diamond in that; what songs did he do, just ones from xxxpost Beautiful Noise? Don't know if it was out yet, but shoulda done "Sweet Caroline" with The Band x Toussaint's horns, also yeah Brill Building.

“Dry Your Eyes” iirc

And yeah the Bang stuff is great.

XP Fresh Smoked Clapton

minus the proto-punk and avant-garde side that Robbie never seemed to care for

Now pining for the Iggy & Zappa collabs that could have been.

Robbie: "The man...IGGY POP! He was in the Stooges!"

<The Band + Iggy perform shaky version of "Search & Destroy">

<Zappa's guitar strap breaks, Robertson smokes him by picking up the solo on "Pumping The Poodle (Variations #2)">

Robbie: "The man...IGGY POP! He was in the Stooges!"

<The Band + Iggy perform shaky version of "Search & Destroy">

Moe Tucker continues all the while unfazed and focused on pounding out the rhythm on her upended bass drum, doesn’t miss a beat.

David Crosby makes face to show that he is not amused, picks fights with all and sundry, including Graham Nash and a very out of it Michael Clarke.

i want this as my xmas card, i'm inbetween levon and garth lookswise at this point in my life

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